Walking into swarms of bees just another day on the job for this duo

Friday

May 30, 2008 at 12:01 AMMay 30, 2008 at 1:31 AM

Walking into a swarm of bees would be traumatic for most people, but for beekeepers Peter Sieling and Dick Russell it’s just another day on the job.

Walking into a swarm of bees would be traumatic for most people, but for Peter Sieling and Dick Russell, it’s just another day on the job.
The two beekeepers routinely go out, remove unwanted honey bee colonies, give them new homes, and — months later — harvest the honey.
Sieling was contacted by a barn owner last fall to let him know a swarm had just moved in to his barn.
“Fall swarms almost never survive, so I told him to wait till spring and he wouldn’t have to pay to have the bees removed,” Sieling said.
This colony did manage to survive the winter, however, so Thursday evening, the two went to the Howard barn to remove the colony.
“The fact that they did survive meant they must have a young, vigorous queen — worth saving,” Sieling said.
After removing the inner barn wall, the men gently cut the honeycomb from the barn piece by piece and placed them in a bee box for transportation to a new home. With each piece removed from the barn, they also were trying to find the queen bee, identifiable because she is about twice the size as the rest of the bees.
Sieling found the queen on the second piece of comb and placed her, along with several other bees, in a separate container for safe travel.
“When we opened the wall, we could immediately see that the swarm had started out strong in the fall but harvested barely enough honey to survive the winter,” said Sieling. “Most of the bees had died by spring. A vigorous colony would have had more bees than comb.”
Sieling estimated that Thursday’s colony contained less than 10,000 bees.
After all the combs were removed and placed in bee boxes, the remaining stragglers — the bees that didn’t go along with the comb — were vacuumed up to later be reunited with the hive.
“Judging by the tight brood pattern and the number of eggs in the cells, I would guess that after transferring the comb into a regular bee hive, the colony will build up and hopefully produce a surplus by September —as much as 100 pounds of honey,” Sieling said.
Sieling has been taking care of bees on and off for his whole life — “mostly on,” he said.
“My dad had bees when he was a young guy,” said Sieling, a Howard resident. “He died when I?was 18, and I?took care of the hives.”
Sieling currently has 11 hives, and he normally keeps between 10 and 20.
Russell, from Canisteo, is relatively new to beekeeping; this is his third year caring for the creatures. He builds his hives himself.
“I drove by a road-side honey stand about 10 years ago and decided I’d like to have bees,” Russell said.
If you happen upon a colony of bees, both men agree the worst thing you can do is spray them with insecticide.
“You can’t get them all, and then they will swarm,” Russell said.
Sieling estimates he has been stung more than 100 times; on one occasion he was stung about 20 times in a single day. He said bees give off a “danger” scent right before they sting.
“It’s an acetone, banana, fruity smell,” Sieling said. “It means you’re about to get stung.”
The Evening Tribune

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